[Patents] Article in the Irish Times.

[Stefane Fermigier sf@fermigier.com]

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/finance/2000/0714/fin18.htm

``The Americanisation of European patent law continues apace, with Germany's
Supreme Court moving closer to the US practice of granting patents for
software.  This autumn, the European parliament will consider a proposal to
extend the rule to the European Union as a whole. If the measure is approved,
software in Europe, as in the US, will enjoy both the protection of copyright
and patent law.  But though the apparent beneficiaries of this change are
software developers, those same developers are beginning to resist this
expansion in their rights.

[...]

If patenting software will induce more innovation in software development, 
then
let proponents demonstrate it, through careful and convincing economic
evidence. But until they do, Europe should wait.  Legislation needs a better
reason than that lawyers like it, and that America does it.''

        S.

-- 
Stéfane Fermigier, Tel: 06 63 04 12 77 (mobile).
<www.portalux.com>: le portail Linux / logiciel libre.
"Amazon: we patent the dot in .com"